Established in June 1946, by students and graduates in honor of Professor Younger. This scholarship is awarded to industrial systems and engineering students.
A short biography of John Younger’s (August 18, 1882 – November 14, 1945) early life adapted from his own manuscript, provided by his granddaughters.
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Professor John Younger, circa 1925
John’s early years were both privileged and personally challenging. His father was a locomotive manufacturer in Glasgow, Scotland. This was a very happy time, the family traveled together for business and John tagged along with his father as he worked but he died when John was 10 – and life changed.
A cruel schoolmaster was finally succeeded by an apprenticeship as a regular locomotive shop worker, shortly after overlaid by college studies at the University of Glasgow providing six months at each for five years. Within the shop: forge, foundry, machine shop, fitting, and assembly; he learned differential and integral calculus by studying the lead screw of a lathe. College studies helped him find it valuable to think ”backward and forward” – first who and how made, then who and how used.
Notable quotes: “Independent thinking should be cultivated at all times.”
“Students are like men, you may lead them, but you can’t drive them.”
“There are an unlimited number of damn fools and it’s the Engineer’s job to look out for them. “
John was involved in the dramatic manufacturing change from the practices of using calipers and files to fit individually molded iron parts to the practices of using gauges and tolerances for mass production and using holding devices for cutting tools. These changes were first applied to sewing machine manufacturing; he was among the first to apply it to weapons. His first supervisor in the British weapons plant told him “This is your office, if I ever find you in it, you’re fired.”
The romance of the automobile finally drew him in. During his college days he was hired by C. C. Rolls to record the new machine’s mechanical statistics of engine bore and stroke, estimated horsepower, weight, brake horsepower as well as route traveled and any engine trouble. He rode on the car’s sill or running board to record these since Rolls and the driver sat in the only seats. They put resin on the brakes at the top of long hills and often used hedges along the roadsides to slow the car down. He liked the man Rolls as a “splendid driver and equally great young man”. They did break the law by driving twelve miles an hour when the speed limit had just been raised from five to ten.
In 1906, he began work for a truck manufacturer that made the newly applied concept of worm gears for rear axles and the business grew. He dealt with labor issues: how to bring suitable labor to a community and determine the choice of paying either by piece work or by time units. He applied Frederick Taylor’s principles, studying one man’s work and then setting up a pay structure that rewarded high production. They started manufacturing gas powered farm tractors and fire trucks. In 1909 Pierce Arrow, a US company, ordered two trucks. In 1910 the Hudson Motor Company in Detroit expressed interest in his knowledge and so he immigrated with his pregnant wife and young son to the United States to work in the automobile business there.
In 1926 John developed the concept of an Industrial Engineering Department for approval by the University and the national accrediting agency. He then brought it to fruition and taught there until his death. His eldest daughter remembered him as someone who built confidence and gave encouragement, believing that everyone has value. He was unhappy that a worker would have only a single task throughout his workday, sometimes “twisting the same bolt repetitively”. He wondered how could this person take pride in the larger finished piece – How could he feel truly the importance of his work?
He and Muriel, a London, England native, raised five children while holding more than five diverse jobs in over as many cities and companies. He loved music, poetry, acting in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and working with people, especially students.
Although many of the “Chief’s” primary activities and concerns occurred over a hundred years ago, his principal concepts and concerns remain with us and particularly you, the recipients of his scholarship this year in the Department of Integrated Systems. I’m sure that he would wish you the best and assure you that YOU HAVE IT WITHIN YOURSELF TO SUCCEED AT YOUR CHOSEN DREAM.
-Jean Ganger, granddaughter of John Younger, September 2023.